A DIALOGUE ON MIRACLES

A DIALOGUE ON MIRACLES

I saw your image stitched and stuffed as a well-/worn pincushion with the legend “There/is a place in my heart for you”. ---From “Milagrito: Eye of the Raven,” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-25-11

Was that a heart left askew at the wayside chapel

of the Albuquerque  abbey? Was it an offering

yanked out of a purloined body, a lover’s sacrifice?

Would you do that for me, amor mio, would you? 

What looked like a heart: yes, moulded in silver

melted from old pesetas and Yanqui moneda, an

unlikely blending of borders here where human

traffic routinely includes migrant decapitation. 

Mira, mira: los dedos de plata, los ojos de oro!*

But why is that other heart carved from wood?

And that shrunken head made of brittle wax?

The maze of lines on its forehead are angry cracks. 

Las hechuras de milagritos, these miracle forms,

they, too, have class distinctions: silver and gold

for the rich, wood and wax for the struggling.

Who and what would the gods hearken to? Sabes? 

Then pray, amor mio, that surprises met here

with largesse are not the same as those in heaven.                                                                            

---Albert B. Casuga

07-26-11

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Amor mio – my love; pesetas, moneda – money; Sabes? – Do you know?

*Look, look: the fingers are made of silver, the eyes of gold.